Week 4 - Summer Low Carb Bootcamp - Wherein we totes commit

[BigStickBIWI]

OK. It has come to my attention that there has been a lot of slippage going on over the last few days

Low carbing is not a very forgiving way of eating. It isn't like following a low calorie diet, where one meal or one day can compensate for another.

If you're low carbing then you have to commit to low carbing all the time.

Once you reach your target weight, then this isn't necessarily the case, but whilst you're losing weight, you really do have to keep your carbs low. If you don't, then all you're doing is constantly messing with your blood sugars.

And, if you have a massive increase in carbs, you are constantly re-filling your glycogen stores, which means your weight could go up by as much as 7lbs. And you're stopping your body shifting from carb-burning to fat-burning, because you're having to deal with all those pesky carbs.

So, here is the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness for you to confess all

Let's make sure that we really commit and get shot of that weight.

[CiderwithBuda]

MrsFlorrick - that sounds challenging! But I am laughing at idea of naked toddler shouting about being cold! They are funny things!

Good day here although still feeling rubbish. Am in bed as am shattered.

B - egg mayo and ham
L - chicken with skin and salad with feta, asparagus, oil and mayo
S - Greek yoghurt, ham
D - beef stroganoff, leeks in butter
S cheese

Drank 6 glasses of water. About 2.4 lts.

Night all.

[EwanHoozami]

the liver curry was a slightly bonkers, even eat-anything DH was a bit

Anyway - Cheapness If anyone fancies any of these give me a nudge and I'll stick up some vague recipes.

• corned beef hash with swede
  
• smoked mackerel kedgeree with cauli rice
  
• sardine fishcakes
  
• oxtail and mushroom stew
  
• feta and courgette crustless quiche
  
• tinned tuna nicoise salad
  
• chicken thighs and drumsticks 'marinaded' in mayo and paprika, white wine vinegar and thyme
  
• spicy kidney and toasted almond salad
  
• omelette "cannelloni" stuffed with spinach, cream cheese and nutmeg
  
• soups! curried cauliflower, cream of swede, broccoli and stilton, egg-drop spinach, mushroom and tarragon, leek and turnip
  
• tinned salmon fritatta
  
• lots of great mince recipes (curried lamb mince, vietnamese-style pork mince etc)
  
• beef brisket chilli con carne
  
• soy and fivespice roast turkey thighs
  
  Low carb = boring and expensive? Non non non!
  
  
  plus the usual tips...
  
  
• buy reduced-shelf meat and freeze it
  
• grow your own salad on your windowsill
  
• discover Lidl
  
• keep leftovers and have them for breakfast and lunch
  
• fatty cuts of meat (lamb shoulder, pork belly etc) are cheaper. Slow cookers are great for them.
  
• meal plan

[BigStickBIWI]

You are forgiven, MrsFlorrick

It could have been a whole lot worse!

My day:

B - Total ff yoghurt with vanilla
L - 2 boiled eggs (had to be something very quick between gym and osteopath appointment)
D - chicken, roasted with lemon and onion, celeriac mash with lots of butter and some wholegrain mustard, white cabbage, braised with onion and butter

Personal training session at the gym, so worked hard today.

[MaryBeardfanclub]

B: 2 hb eggs with lots of butter
L: cauli puree, salmon cooked with butter, veg
S: big chunk of cheese, but not a whole one
D: prawn curry, cauli rice, sag paneer, yog with cucumber
well done one and all

[JaxTellerIsAllMine]

you are all very good today.

We had indian tonight (birthday meal) - and then cake.

But tomorrow is a fresh start and all will be fine. Ive said that a lot today. I did have a lovely crayfish and asparagus salad for lunch - but they put lime in my soda water and I got the sugar/carb shakes late afternoon, so drank loads of normal water and ate 2 babybel cheese, felt better after that.

Thats all I ate today, black coffee for B and glasses of water inbetween everything else.

Could have been worse.

[couch25cakes]

I started today on day 1 week one, think I got it right.
I had
B- omelette with peppers and mushrooms, slice of bacon
L- chicken salad, just chicken, lettuce, oil and white wine vinegar
D- family had tacos, I had taco meat, sour cream, cheese, salad

And loads of water.
I will try to get onto the laptop tomorrow and log onto the spreadsheet.

[BerylStreep]

Um, something weird has happened to the spreadsheet. There are only about 5 names on it.

Anyway, I was 90.8 this morning, which is 1kg down from last week.

[CrabbyBigbottom]

Sorry to read of people struggling with family and financial circumstances. Hope things get and stay better.

3lbs off this week, so total of 9lbs in a fortnight.

I've totally hit a wall though - my body is rebelling. Felt a bit better today but have been feeling weak and exhausted and nauseous. The thought of eating the food I'm allowed is just not appealing, in fact the thought of eggs, meat, avocados, even my beloved cheese, makes me feel sick. The result is that I'm not eating enough. I'm hungry but have no appetite, if that makes sense.

Today's been better than yesterday, anyway, but my body is craving some carbs - muesli, buckwheat blini, beans. I think it's been something to do with having a very heavy period and being more physical activity than usual - I haven't got the reserves to deal with it and I feel exhausted, weak and tearful.

It took some supreme fucking willpower to turn down offer of birthday cake, then not snaffle the slices given me for the DD and friend, even when they left some little mouth-sized bites on the plate! Then to cap it off the friend's mum very kindly bought me a cake as a thank you for having her, which I said no to in such a vehement way that I fear I may have offended her.

Maid thanks for replying to me on the last thread. My usual salad has been some chicken or pork with avocado, feta cheese, salad leaves and garlic mayonnaise. Just haven't been able to stomach avocado,the last few days; usually I love it.

Yesterday
B/L - eggs mashed with bit of cheese and mayonnaise
S - slice cheese and olives
D - steak with asparagus, broccoli and celeriac dauphinoise
2x tea, 2x glasses red wine. Lots of water

Today
No breakfast
L - leftover celeriac dauphinoise
D - stir fry of shredded cabbage and other veg with leftover chicken, in 5-spice mix
2x tea. Lots of water.

[prettybird]

Marking place.

[WillieWaggledagger]

Someone keeps doing that beryl, I'll sort it when I get into work at 7

[BigStickBIWI]

Crabby - sorry to hear that you're not feeling great. Well done for resisting the cake and carbs though.

If you don't fancy the food, don't eat it. No point making yourself sick. Just keep drinking the water so that you don't get dehydrated.

Heavy physical activity at the start of a low carb WOE can take it out of you, as you don't have the glycogen reserves and you aren't fully switched over to fat-burning. Perhaps give yourself a bit of a break from exercise or do something less taxing until you feel better.

And are you making sure that you're getting enough sodium/magnesium/potassium? It could be a sign of electrolyte imbalance. Are you using salt/adding salt to your food? Try making a drink with Oxo/Bovril or Marmite. Spinach and salmon (as well as avocado, although I see that you're sick of those!) are good sources of these important nutrients.

[BigStickBIWI]

Some interesting information about sports drinks, electrolytes and a recipe to make your own, from lowcarbdiets.about.com:

"For people who's bodies are used to using carbohydrate for energy, it is helpful to have extra sugar during heavy exercise. But what about people on low-carb diets?

The issue of exercise with people who are restricting carbohydrates has not been extensively studied. Preliminary studies show that when people cut carbs, their bodies do change from using primarily carbohydrate for energy to using fat for energy, although it can take 2-3 weeks for the body to make this change. We know that native populations, such as the Inuit, who traditionally ate a very low-carbohydrate diet, were and are able to maintain vigorous endurance exercise for long periods without apparent ill effect. So it appears that over time, bodies adapt to using fat for energy during exercise.

For any one person, I think experimenting is in order. It's very unlikely that moderate exercise would make you need extra carbohydrate if you are used to eating a low-carb diet. For more vigorous workouts, try different amounts of carb and see how you feel. However, there's no reason to have to drink a sugary drink. Why not have a piece of fruit and get some nutrition with that sugar?

Electrolytes

Electrolytes are molecules of certain minerals that have an electrical charge. Our nervous system runs on the electricity generated by the manipulation of these molecules, called ions. This means that every function in the body that is dependent upon our nervous system (muscle movement, breathing, digestion, thinking, etc.) requires electrolytes, and the body places a priority on managing them.

Electrolytes also are used to regulate the fluid balances in the body. Electrolytes include ions of calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and chloride.

How do our bodies get electrolytes?

We get these minerals through the food we eat, and lose them through excretion in various ways. Our sweat contains sodium, chloride, and potassium. These minerals are common in food. Sodium chloride is table salt, and both sodium and chloride are found in many, if not most, foods. Potassium is found in a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meats, legumes, and nuts.

How much sweating to we need to do before lost minerals need replacement? Under ordinary conditions, it's not a problem. Eating a balanced diet will supply the body with plenty of minerals for our electrolyte needs if we are getting a moderate amount of exercise. However, endurance athletes who exercise strenuously for long periods may need extra salt and potassium, as they can sweat quarts of water per day. Sports drinks contain small amounts of sodium and potassium.

Sodium - 8 oz of a typical sports drink contains 110 mg of sodium. This is the amount of sodium in a small pinch of salt. A teaspoon of salt contains 2300 mg of sodium, so basically you need 1/20th of a teaspoon of salt - not much! Half an ounce of salted peanuts (about 14 peanuts) has this much sodium, and also about 90 mg of potassium.

Potassium - 8 oz of a typical sports drink contains 30 mg of potassium. A cup of tea has 88 mg of potassium. A small peach has 150 mg. More high potassium low-carb foods

How to Make Low-Carb Sports Drink

It turns out that two tablespoons of lemon juice contain almost exactly the amount of potassium in 8 oz of a typical sports drink. So, if you want to make your own low-carb sports drink, it's quite easy. Just mix together:

1 cup (8 oz) water (not carbonated)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
small pinch of salt
Flavoring and sweetener to taste

Flavoring Ideas:
Crystal Light Drink Mix
Unsweetened Kool Aid (with sugar substitute to taste)
Sugar-Free Flavored Syrups such as Da Vinci or Torino"

[CrabbyBigbottom]

Thanks BIWI for all that information. I might try eating butter and marmite. Lots of soy sauce on my food last night, and I do take a calcium and magnesium supplement, along with a multi vit.

I'm cleaning and decorating, rather than exercising, but more activity for me than I'm used to. I think I've got rid of my glycogen stores and now I now I find I need them! If I feel really ill today again then I think I'll up the carbs a wee bit to get me through the week. Hopefully I won't though. Onwards and upwards!

[BigStickBIWI]

If you are going to up your carbs, do it with extra veg rather than falling into the biscuit tin, though!

[bertieboo]

All of you losers are such an inspiration! I can't wait to be a loser.
So day 1 down and I had an epic fail. It was all going so well.
B - 30g seed granola w coconut milk double espresso
L - salmon
D - homemade chicken tikka w cauliflower & leftover cabbage and pancetta.
At 10pm I meandered past the fridge, clocked fat photo of self and inhaled a chocolate cookie from Ben's (i e massive). It didn't touch the sides.
Feel revolted at my lack of will and self sabotage. Why do I always do this?
And this was after a "good day" where I had a personal training session and did an hours reformer Pilates. Want to blame my oncoming period but then I always find something to blame.....
Starting again today.

[WillieWaggledagger]

bertie, next time that happens, post on here, we will talk you down

what is seed granola?

[BigStickBIWI]

bertie - how are you making your granola? What's in it? Is it really Bootcamp-friendly?

And what veg/salad did you have with your lunch?

It also doesn't look like there's a whole lot of fat in that day ...

[AngieAir]

Further to my cake temptation problems I went over to a friends house yesterday afternoon. I knew there would be cake available. So I thought about how to circumvent the cake refusal issue and I made (thanks to a paleo/primal friend for the idea):

Dates stuffed with half a pecan, dipped in G&B 80% choc mixed with a little butter and a whole pecan on top. They looked very swish. I even put them in little cases.

I ate two, they were so rich I couldn't have managed any more. So dates have carbs but far fewer than a slice of cake. And I drove so I couldn't drink.

today's plan is plenty of water, start cutting down on milk in tea
B: mushrooms fried in butter, coffee with cream
L: salmon steak with avocado
D: burger and salad leaves
S: Greek yogurt

[MrsCoyote]

I would like to join in if it is still possible.

I am quite impressed with the Bootcamp idea.
Last June I ate paleo and quite liked it and felt OK, but then holidays came and I completely lost it and forgot about it.
So now is the right time again.

Yesterday (day 1)
3 scramled eggs with butter
bacon and raddish
white cabbage with mayo and boiled egg

[LavenderBriggs]

Morning. Thank you for the lovely thoughts and best wishes. Mum is doing amazing well. I've told her that I'll love her no matter how many boobs she has. Please make sure you all give your norks a good check over - picking problems up early can make a big difference

If it helps anyone, I exercise in fat-burning mode. When I started I thought I had to have some carbs to burn, but that went out the window when I went for an early morning run on an empty stomach and felt fantastic - the energy was coming from my whole body, not just last night's dinner. If you're fat-burning, you're fat-burning, your body can cope with exercise. You carry around 2000 calories of glycogen in your muscles, when that's gone you can't instantly switch to fat-burning, you just hit a wall. You carry around 40,000 calories in fat - you're going to have to go on a very long run to burn all of those. It took me around 2 weeks to get it all sorted out.

Another point - if you deplete your glycogen through exercise you can replace the carbs by eating two apples. That's all. No huge bowls of pasta needed, two apples will replenish the carb store. That's if you're burning carbs, which we aren't - we're fat-burners

Good luck to all you lovely losers.

[bertieboo]

BIWI the granola is pre packaged by a company called natural ketosis. They provide food packages to keep you under 40g carbs daily so you can get into ketosis and lose weight. Breakfast is my most stressful time of the day, so having an instant breakfast suits me.
It may not be boot camp friendly!
30g contains: pumpkin seeds 33%, sunflowers seeds 15%, dedicated coconut 11%, rolled oats mixed flax seeds 3%, sunflower oil, salt freeze dried raspberries 1.4%, freeze dried strawberries 1%, natural flavouring.
Even though 30g of the seed and berry clusters looks tiny, it does actually keep me going until lunchtime.

Re the salmon for lunch, as I was rushing from the gym, I ate one of the pre packaged kiln roasted salmons. So there were no vegetables. Is the salmon not fatty enought in itself to not need additional fat? Do I need to add a salad to it to fill me up?

Am enjoying reading what others have eaten during the day, and am drawing inspiration from some of the meal plans listed on the thread. in future I will definitely post when I feel a mad craving overcome me.

Have managed to drink at least 3l of water a day for the past week, and hope that by the end of the week my insane sugar and carbs cravings will have diminished.

Thank you for your support. I do beat myself up a lot and wonder why I don't have the will power others seem to have.

[bertieboo]

Lavender, your post made me smile! Noorks will be my word of the day. Wonder how many times I can throw it into conversation.

[couch25cakes]

is cocnut milk OK or a big no no -I'm at work and struggling to figure some things out. Also tinned tomatoes?
I want to use the pork mince I have in the fridge to make a kofta curry but am afraid of the coconut milk.

[BigStickBIWI]

bertieboo - on a low carb WOE you are much less likely to need willpower as you shouldn't find yourself getting hungry in between meals. But the key to this is eating fat and protein - not carbs. If you ate a breakfast of, say, bacon and eggs, with some mushrooms fried in butter on the side, you would find that this would easily take you through till lunchtime without being hungry.

I'm worried about your breakfast being too carby (which will also mean you're more likely to get hungry mid-morning), and because of this it means that you aren't getting your carbs from veg/salad. It's also sweet, which isn't going to help you get rid of your sugar cravings! The whole point of the strict fortnight of Bootcamp is to break the addiction to carbs/sugar that we have.

The salmon is obviously a more fatty fish than, say, cod - but it's not that fatty and you really would have benefited from something like some veg with butter or a salad dressed with vinaigrette alongside it.

[BigStickBIWI]

Welcome, MrsCoyote!

couch25cakes Blue Dragon coconut milk is 3.4g carbs per 100ml, which is 1/4 of a tin, so it's not too bad. Sainsbury's Basics chopped tomatoes (in a tetrapak carton) are 12g carbs for the whole carton.

So if you were to use a tin and pack, the total carbs would be 25.6g carbs - if you're making that amount for 4 people, then that's 6.4g carbs per person, which isn't too bad - depending on what other veg you're using, of course